Why Attack on Titan is the greatest story of all time (in my opinion…)

    12 years ago back in 2009, manga artist Hajime Isayama created the manga Shingeki no Kyojin also better known as Attack on Titan. As a 3-year-old, I made the worst mistake of my life. I didn’t start reading Attack on Titan until 2019. With the decade-long series having finished just a few weeks ago, I have bestowed it the title of the greatest story of all time (in my opinion..).

For those of you who do not know, Attack on Titan is mainly known for its incredible success in the anime adaptation which started in 2013 and has been going strong with 4 seasons with the last one ending next year. Despite its greatness, it has yet to finish catching up with the source material, so I am here to talk about the original manga which finished on April, 9th and is better than the anime fight me, but that’s a topic for another day.

    As someone who was heavily invested in it, I found it to be a hell of a journey following Eren Jaeger and his friends trying to achieve freedom. There were many points during the story at which I felt amazed. But one of the things that awed me was how Hajime Isayama very clearly had the story planned out years if not a whole decade ahead, this allowed for the most mind-blowing reveals which I’d be a jerk to spoil. Despite being dramatic, it felt very real and fitting, which expanded the fictional world you thought you knew by leaps and bounds. Every time you had a question answered a larger one would take its place.

    Titans are the (usually) mindless giants that preyed on humans, these titans can regenerate and behave in a similar way to zombies with their only weak spot being the nape. Over time humanity built massive walls and developed technology to defend against the titans. One of the most prominent technologies and the one that I found coolest was the 3DMG/ODM gear(omnidirectional maneuvering gear). It is worn on the waist and works off of an unspecified gas that uses it to launch grappling hooks and propel the user to fly around like a steampunk spiderman using triggers on their blade handles and using the blade itself to cut the napes of titans. The technology present in the story fits very well into the setting and has a great mix of fiction and realism. I found this to be incredibly impressive considering it has no real-life counterpart. With more creative concepts appearing later on during the story, I could spend hours just talking about the technologies.

    I could easily write a 5-page essay about why I love Attack on Titan voluntarily. These were just some of the points that came to mind, but an incredible collection of great things varying from world-building, great art, foreshadowing, suspense, characters, moments of true disbelief, and realism. If I was in person and had some sort of authority over you, I would force you to read it cover to cover. Luckily for you, I can only write this blog post, but I truly recommend reading or even watching the anime adaptation. 

-Jaewoon